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Crooked Fingers
RED DEVIL DAWN
(MERGE)

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Even back when his main gig was fronting the youthfully energetic Archers of Loaf, there was always a weary, desolate edge to singer/guitarist Eric Bachmann’s low croak of a voice as he meandered in and out of key amid the controlled chaos of the band’s skewed pop tunes. And the characters who populated his songs always seemed to be flirting with some kind of tragedy. But now that he’s moved on to a solo career as Crooked Fingers, Bachmann’s light blue moodiness has given way to a deeper, darker shade of melancholy, and the people who roam the skeletal yet sturdy soundscapes of Red Devil Dawn, his third Crooked Fingers album, are all victims of epic misfortunes that have left them isolated in some broken-down corner of the world.

"Nobody works and nobody plays/All of their dreams have melted away/All of their hopes have come and gone/Even the vultures have moved on," he croons with compassion against lightly chiming guitars in the opening track, which sets the bleak scene for the rest of the disc. Yet there’s subtle humor and rugged poetry in his plangent prose, and there’s more than a little melody in the swells of strings that often envelop his wounded words. There are glimmers of hope, too, even if they’re wrenched from a tattered tale of abuse like "Sweet Marie," where a battered girlfriend steals moments of true romance with the singer, who boasts that she "could never cheat with anyone but me" as trumpet and violin combine to create an oddly upbeat hook.

There’s a certain sameness to the singsongy melodies Bachmann favors. But that only reinforces the sense that, without attempting a concept album, he’s written a powerful and often beautiful song cycle about the broken and the dispossessed.

BY MATT ASHARE

Issue Date: February 6 - 13. 2003
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